Favorite Song No. 337: Ratatat – Wildcat

Had Beethoven been born in 1970 instead of 1770, his music would probably have sounded a lot like Ratatat’s. I know they are typically categorized under the indie rock or indie electronic label, and their sound is best described as shredding guitars over hip hop drumbeats, but from the first moment I heard them I thought “classical music masquerading as electronic dance music.” I mean, come on. Put Mozart in a room with a sampler and a pet mountain lion for an hour and tell me he wouldn’t have come up with “Wildcat.” Don’t let that great cat’s roar fool you, either. If you took piano lessons as a child and had to plunk your way through minuets and movements, you will instantly recognize this as a classically-styled composition.

This song is synonymous with dancing. If I’m DJ’ing an indie night at a club and I throw Ratatat into the mix, the results are always positive. I know that if I hear “Wildcat” in the, well, wild, I can’t help but dance, so how could anyone else? And don’t lie, every time the wildcat roars, you also make a cat’s claw and paw at the air in front of you, right? You do, don’t you? I can’t be the only one. Well, anyway, if you didn’t before, you will now because, I mean to say, why wouldn’t you? It’s a wildcat, so be a wildcat, am I right?

Speaking of me being a wildcat and a night club DJ, today I shared a recording on Mixcloud that was made while I was, wait for it… DJ’ing a night club. The event was waaaaay back in the ancient year of 2007, which in all honesty feels like yesterday but was somehow 13 years ago, and I was playing at a fundraiser for NARAL, hosted by Wiretap Music, at the venerable night spot El Rio, in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights. You can hear “Wildcat” in that mix, along with some other great electro-rock hybrid bands of that era: Hot Chip, The Knife, Justice, and others. If you enjoyed that mix, you can find other recordings of my live mixes, along with some digitized versions of mixtapes I’ve made throughout the years, on my Mixtapes page. Now get out there and paw the air like you mean it, you wildcat, you!